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What Cam Newton Signing with the Patriots means for Jimmy Garoppolo and the 49ers

The Patriots have kept the door open to trade for Jimmy Garoppolo in 2021.

Grant Cohn

The Patriots recently signed quarterback Cam Newton to a cheap one-year contract. What could this move possibly mean for the 49ers?

At first, it seems like nothing. But it could mean the Patriots have kept the door open to trade for Jimmy Garoppolo in 2021.

It’s hard to ever know what really goes on with the Patriots, but ESPN’s Seth Wickersham reported that Bill Belichick never wanted to trade Garoppolo to the 49ers in the first place, and was “furious” and “demoralized” when ownership traded him anyway.

And the rumor I heard this offseason is the Patriots offered the 49ers a first-round pick for Garoppolo, and the 49ers turned them down. Which seems plausible, when you consider how long the Patriots took to sign Newton. They certainly were in no rush to get him. He seems like an insurance policy.

Here’s how I read the Patriots:

Belichick probably wants to prove he can develop another Super-Bowl-winning quarterback, probably wants to prove his legacy isn’t just a product of Tom Brady.

And Belichick did not develop Newton -- he developed Jarrett Stidham, the Patriots current starter who has thrown just four career passes, and Garoppolo.

The Patriots probably will give Stidham the first crack at the starting quarterback job next season. If he fails, they probably will bench him and play Newton, then make another attempt to trade for Garoppolo in 2021, when they’ll have roughly $90 million in cap space.

Garoppolo is on an expensive year-to-year deal with the 49ers. Next year, the 49ers probably either will extend his deal or trade him -- one or the other. The current deal is too expensive. And if they trade him, the Patriots probably will be the trade partner.

And the 49ers could replace him with Aaron Rodgers, who no longer seems particularly welcome in Green Bay, and will have zero guaranteed money in his contract after 2020. Or the 49ers could use the pick they receive from New England, and trade up for one of the top rookie quarterbacks in the draft next year.

Whatever the 49ers decide to do about Garoppolo, it seems the Patriots will patiently wait for them to make up their minds.

Newton changes nothing.

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Grant Cohn
GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.

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